Bring Me To Life
by KimMalfoy
Summary: Sequel to Running Away. Draco Malfoy is dead, the name is Daniel Matthews now. He wants to forget about all that has happened to him but his past just won't stop haunting him. Can anybody bring him back to life?
1. Shattered Glass

**A/N: **Hey there everybody, here's my brand new story 'Bring Me to Life'… It's the Sequel to my One-Shot 'Running Away'… You don't have to read the One-Shot to understand the plot in this story although if you want all the facts I suggest that you'd read 'Running Away' first. It's not very long. ;)

I use some Evanescence lyrics in this chapter, they're _cursive… _Their songs are my huge inspiration source while writing this story. Normally I'm not such a big fan of them but I can almost relate all the lyrics from the album 'Fallen' to this story and to Draco's situation.

Also… There might be some **HBP (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) spoilers **so if you don't want to know anything about what happened in HBP then maybe you shouldn't read this story… or 'Running Away'!

And yeah, I **don't own either Draco or Ginny **they belong to Miss J.K Rowling, and if some other characters that you know from the Harry Potter books show up in the story then you know that J.K owns them to. **I own the plot **and my made-up characters.

Alright here it is. I hope to hear from you in reviews ;)

-- Kim.

**Chapter 01 – Shattered Glass**

_These wounds won't seem to heal. This pain is just too real. _

_There's just too much that time can not erase_

I hear my mother calling my name every night in my sleep and I hear my father tell me to run for my life, and I run. I run until my legs can't carry me anymore. Until I can't breathe, it's like someone is strangling me, but this someone doesn't want to see me dead just in as much pain as possible. But I die… Every single night. He kills, Lord Voldemort kills me in my sleep and I wake up all wrapped into the sheets and covered in sweat. There's a taste of blood in my mouth and I feel the urgent need to throw up.

I can't believe that it's been five years since he killed my parents and I still have nightmares about it. Why can't I just get over it?

I get up from the bed and feel even more nauseous, I think I drank a few more drinks then I should've the night before. My head is spinning and then I really feel that what I ate and drank last night is coming up again. I rush into my small bathroom and I throw up everything, until I feel empty. I flush the toilet watching the yellow sludge disappear down in the sewage.

I rise to look at myself in the small mirror over the washbasin; I look pale, almost dead. The colour of my skin is almost as white as my t-shirt used to be when it once was clean. The taste in my mouth is unbearable it almost makes me want to throw up again, but there's nothing left to throw up… I touch my cheek and my chin and I clearly feel the bones, must have lost a couple of pounds this week as well.

My reflection in the mirror smiles at me and I wonder why because I am not smiling. I clench my fists as the reflection tells me that this day will be different. "Different my ass", I mumble and I break the mirror with my bare hands. I don't care whether my knuckles are bleeding and I don't care if there's shattered glass everywhere in the bathroom. I don't give a damn!

I take off all the clothes that I've been wearing for forty-eight hours without changing. All off it. Then I step into the shower and I turn on the cold water. It is one of the few things that can ease my pain, but only when I'm standing there letting the water rush over my body. When I step out from the shower again the pain comes back, it's like something is burning inside of me and I just want to cry. But I won't.

I haven't cried since the very night, almost exactly five years ago, when my parents died.

I leave the bathroom and walk into my bedroom, which is also my living room, and I dress up in the cleanest clothes I can find on the floor. My hair looks like a total mess but I really don't care. I grab my jacket and put on my shoes before I leave my small apartment and walk out on a rather quiet street of New York City. I walk past a kinder garden without looking twice at the children, they remind me of my childhood when I belonged to a happy family…

For each step I take I get closer to the only light in my life, River Café.

Pathetic, I know, the only light in my life is a stupid café… But I just love that place. It's decorated in happy colours; it's placed just by the water and the people that is working there are always so nice and friendly. Not that I speak to them very often but just seeing them smile at me or hearing them say 'good morning' fills my heart with a little hope that someday my world won't be black and white anymore…

I get closer and closer; soon I put my hand on the door handle and open the door. I walk over to my favourite table in a corner of the café, but someone else is sitting there today. A woman with long fiery red hair, she's reading something. Why the hell is she sitting by my table? I sit there every morning. Who does she think she is, just bursting into my life like this and ruining my every day routine?

"Excuse me, but I would this is my table", I say.

She looks up at me, "Your table?" She says. "There are plenty of others tables in here take one of them because I happen to like it here"

Her voice and her gorgeous British accent, which resembles my own, make me speechless. I haven't heard anyone but myself talking with a British accent for over two years now… I'm even starting to lose my own accent; it's slowly drifting away into a more American one.

She doesn't take her eyes away from me, "Do I know you?" She asks.

"I don't think so", I reply, but the truth is I have a weird feeling that I've seen her before. The red hair, the blue eyes… everything seems so familiar. "Would you be so kind and leave my table now?"

"I'm not leaving, I got here first", the woman tells me. I like her attitude, she's just as stubborn as myself, but I don't have time to fight with her now I need my breakfast before I have to go to my job.

"I sit here every single morning and I've done so for the past year, now please, be so kind and change table!" I say and I try to sound more definite this time.

"Maybe you need a change then", she exclaims before she starts to read her book again. "Unless you wouldn't mind sharing the table of course?" She asks with a smile on her lips that makes my heart jump in my chest. "I can be really quiet, if you don't look at me you won't notice I'm here"

Without a word I sit down at the opposite side of the table, she giggles and continues to read her book. I order what I order every morning; bacon, eggs, toast, pumpkin juice and a cup of tea. My appetite is great in the morning because it's the only time at the day I know I won't throw up after eating. I eat in silence and I notice the woman at the other side of my table look up at me every now and then, but when her eyes meet mine she looks at her book again, pretending that she wasn't looking at me at all.

"I'm sorry, but you look awfully familiar, what's your name?" She asks and now she's not avoiding my gaze when I look into her deep blue eyes.

"You said you'd be quiet", I snap. She rolls her eyes and once again she looks down at her book, but it doesn't look like she's reading. I study her, the freckles that you only can see if you look really closely and the shape of her face… I know I've seen it before. Then it hits me, she's a Weasley… She's Ron Weasel-bee's little sister. She's the girl that received Tom Dolder's diary from my father right before our second year at Hogwarts, which was her first year. She's the girl that the almighty Harry Potter saved from Voldemort in the Chamber of Secrets.

Ginny, that's her name, Ginny Weasley.

Since when did she grow up into a fine woman I wonder…? But then again, it was five years ago since I saw her the last time and back then she looked like a little kid and she was the girlfriend of Harry Potter. I wonder where her superhero boyfriend is now.

I argue with myself in my mind, should I tell that I know who she is or should I not?

"Why are you staring at me?" She asks.

"You're Ginny Weasley", I reply. She looks impressed as she closes her book and looks deep into my eyes. She stares at me for a while, I can clearly see that she is trying really hard to figure out who I am and as she does realize it her eyes grow wide.

"Draco Malfoy", she whispers.

It feels like some one stabs me with a knife as I hear her say my name, it sounds so unfamiliar even though that's been my name for 21 years. Maybe it's because no one has used that name since I ran away to the USA, here I call myself Daniel Matthews. It's a pretty usual name and that's good because I don't want to stick out from the crowd. I want to be who I was born to be… nobody.

"You look so different", she says quietly. "No wonder I didn't recognize you at first"

"Great, now can you please be quiet as you promised? I'd like to finish my breakfast", I say because I'm hungry and I have a long day at work in front of me. I try to concentrate on the food but I feel her eyes on me all the time. Why can't she just stop staring?

"Everyone thinks you are-"

"You said you'd be quiet!" I exclaim angrily and I finish my toast.

She looks deep into my grey eyes before she completes her sentence, "-dead"

I don't say anything because the truth is that Draco Malfoy is dead. I take my glass of pumpkin juice and I squeeze it, I want it to break and I want to bleed, seeing my own blood makes me calm. Hurting myself has become a habit. Knifes, shattered glass, razorblades… That is my drug, which is what keeps me alive. Every single time I think about the past I have to hurt myself because it helps me not to think about the pain in my broken soul.

Finally the glass breaks and I feel pieces of the shattered glass push into the skin of my hand and very soon I feel the warm blood sip out from the cuts.

"Dear Merlin, what are you doing?" Ginny exclaims but to my big surprise she doesn't look very frightened at the sight of blood, and I who always pictured her as a very afraid girl… Then she does something else that surprises me. She grabs my hand, "Here, let me take a look at it"

Her touch is so soft and it makes me forget about the pain that I want to feel. How dare she touch me like this?

A waitress walks up to my table, "I heard glass breaking are you o-- oh my god that looks gross Daniel!" She exclaims and looks disgusted. "Do you want me to call an ambulance?"

I laugh quietly. An ambulance? For some small cuts in my hand? That's ridiculous she should've seen that time I cut myself so deep in my arms and lost so much blood that I passed out.

"No, it's ok, I'm a hea- a doctor! I can help him", Ginny says, still holding my hand in hers. "Let's get into the bathroom Draco"

"It's Daniel", I snap. "And I'm not going anywhere with you!" I pull away my hand from her and finally I feel the pain again, but it's different now. This time I don't feel any pleasure from the pain… It just hurts and I don't like it. Stupid Ginny Weasley! In just a few minutes she's not only destroyed my every day routine but also my only pleasure in life.

"Daniel, let the woman help you! You look really pale", the waitress, who's name is Rose by the way, said. She tried to avoid gazing at the blood. "Come here; let me help you to the bathroom"

"No"

"You are making a big scene now Daniel, go to the bathroom, let her help you! She's a doctor!"

"You know what… I'm just going to leave", I said and rose so quickly that my chair fell to the floor. My head is spinning and suddenly I have no idea where I am, all I know is that I'm running and that someone is haunting me, just like in the dreams I have every night. I don't notice that the other guests are staring at me. I don't notice that Ginny gets up from her chair and walks over to me.

"Draco!" She exclaims. My name, my real name, wakes me up from my trans, she puts my arm around her neck.

"I'll get the first-aid kit!" Rose says and hurries away to the kitchen.

Ginny leads me to the bathroom where I sit down at the toilet. Rose comes in with the first-aid kit and hands it to Ginny. Everything happens so quickly. Rose leaves because she can't stand the sight of blood and suddenly Ginny grabs my hand that is now covered in blood. The next thing I know she's got a wet linen napkin in her hand and she's carefully bathing my wounds with it. It stings terribly. She pulls down the sleeve of my arm and gasps as she sees my scars, some fresher then others.

I can feel her eyes on my face, she wants eye contact but I avoid her gaze. I close my eyes and imagine myself being some place else. I'm all alone as I walk over soft green grass, the only sound I hear is the wind blowing in the trees and the birds singing happy tunes.

"This might hurt a little bit", Ginny says and wakes me up from my daydreams. She's got a tweezers in her hand, she's going to pick out the pieces of glass that is still stuck in my skin.

"I am used to pain", I tell her and I look deep into her eyes, they're so blue and they remind me of the sky. I close my eyes again and I feel her pick out piece after piece of glass. I laugh quietly remembering that she said it would hurt. This is nothing to the pain I feel inside every single day.

"What are you laughing at?" She asks.

I don't want to answer her question, that's non of her bloody business. She's done enough to ruin things for me today, I won't spell out the story of my life for her, so I say, "Are you really a doctor?"

"Almost, I'm studying to become a healer, this is my last term here in New York", she replies without taking her eyes of my wounds. I watch her concentrate. I study her closely and I don't pay much attention to what she says. "I've been here for two years now, then I've two years left in London"

She studies my hand closely to see if there are any pieces of glass left, when she can't see any she grabs the linen napkin again to wipe away all the blood. Her touch is so gentle, I never want her to stop. Then she carefully wraps my hand with a bandage.

I look at my watch and I notice that it's nearly 10 AM. "Shit", I mumble. I'm late for work that has never happened during my two years as a street cleaner.

Yes, that is perfectly true, I work as a street cleaner. I make sure that the streets and the park in my area looks nice and clean. It's not very glamorous but at least I get enough money to pay my bills and the rent for my apartment… I know this must sound weird, that Draco Malfoy is living and working as a muggle these days but the night I lost my parents and also lost my lust of performing magic.

"Are you leaving?" Ginny asks as I rise from the toilet.

"Yes, I'm late for work", I reply. "And it's much thanks to you"

She rolls her eyes, "You don't have to thank me"

I turn and walk away, without saying a word. I leave the café and I hurry down the now busy streets of New York City. I wonder if I ever will see her again. Not that I ever would want to meet her again because she's done nothing but disturbing my every day routines and destroying the pleasure I felt from hurting myself. I feel the urgent need to scream and so I do, in my mind. In my soul.

_These wounds won't seem to heal. This pain is just too real. _

_There's just too much that time can not erase_


	2. Falling Apart

**A/N: **Important - The cursive text that looks…

…_like this_

Is a quote from my one-shot "Running Away"!

**Disclaimer:** The HP characters belong to god herself – J.K Rowling. And the cursive text under the chapter title is from the lyrics to an Evanescence song.

**Chapter two – Falling Apart.**

_I tried to kill my pain, but I only got more. Am I too lost to be saved?_

I did not visit the River Café for a week because I didn't want to risk bumping in to Ginny again. Meeting her, talking to her, it all made my already rotten life worse. She killed my pleasure of feeling pain. Now nothing can cease the pain in my broken soul. And like if that wasn't enough, I can't get that stupid Weasley girl out of my mind! Ever since we met one week ago, ever since she so carefully bandaged my hand I haven't been able to stop thinking about her… and about my past which she reminded me off. Meeting her made me wonder whether Lord Voldemort still was alive and about that treacherous git Severus Snape, was he still alive?

These questions and many, many more has bothered me too much this week.

That's why I decided to meet her again, so I leave my apartment earlier then usual this cold Friday morning and I walk towards the River Café. I need answers to my questions. That's all I need, then I never have to see her again. Then I never have to go back to the River Café, which is not the light of my life anymore. See, Ginny destroyed that for me as well. Now this café which almost have been like a second home to me is nothing but a black hole that reminds me of my past.

"Good morning Daniel", Rose says to me with a bright smile on her lips as I enter the door. "I've been worried about you", she says. "Can I get you anything?"

"Yes", I reply quietly and look around in the almost empty room, there's no sign of Ginny. "Can I ask you something- Rose?" It's the first time I ever say her name, she looks curious. Her small green eyes study me closely.

"No Dan, Emily is not working today", she says and gives me wink.

So she thinks she's funny now? I don't care about Emily! I slept with her twice and I don't even know her last name or how old she is, and everybody here seems to think I am so in love with her. I want to tell Rose and everybody else who works here that I have no feelings for Emily and that we only slept together because she practically raped me after we had way too much to drink.

"I was just kidding", she giggles. "Dan, for the year I've known you I don't think I've ever seen you smile, why?" She asks.

"None of your bloody business", I tell her and I feel the anger rise inside of me. I don't want to smile, I have no reason to smile, I don't even remember how to smile. I wonder if she would be smiling if she had witnessed her father kill her mother. I wonder if she'd be smiling if she had heard her fathers' painful screams as someone killed him as well. I bet she wouldn't be smiling if she for five years had heard her fathers voice echo in her mind, _Run for your life! Don't disappoint me Dragon!_

"No need to be rude", Rose says and then she does something that I'm not prepared for. She reaches out her hand and put it on my shoulder. "I know that something's troubling you… If you want I can help you, talk to you"

Her touch is not soft and tender; it feels like someone's placed a stone on my shoulder. I can't handle another stone. I'm carrying too many already. Something's boiling inside of me, anger, I know this feeling to well… I feel the urgent need inside of me to scream, to break something, to hurt myself and to bleed. But still I try to keep my cool. "Actually, I need your help; do you remember that red haired woman that bandaged my hand last week?"

"Yes, of course, she's been here every day since that day", Rose replies.

"Give this note to her the next time you see her", I say and hand over a piece of paper with my indistinct handwriting on. It says that I want to meet her this Friday, at 9AM. I sound desperate but I need answers for my questions.

"Alright, do you want to ask her out?" Rose asks and gives me a wink.

"No", I mutter angrily. I'm about to explode, I know I need to get out of there very soon before things goes bad. I turn away from Rose and start walking towards the door.

"Daniel, I was just joking, sorry!" She calls after me. "Aren't you going to eat something?"

I don't turn around. I'm not hungry. I go where my legs are taking me and it's not to my job, it's to my apartment. I get inside and I lock the door behind me. I want to break something but I can't find anything to break. The mirror in the bathroom is broken; I don't own any vases so I can't break any. One of the chairs in the kitchen has already been abused by me and it wouldn't be very wise to break the other one because then I'd have nowhere to sit.

The only thing to break that I can think of is myself.

I step into the kitchen and automatically my hands open the top drawer and takes out the sharpest knife there is to find. I put the knife on the table while I take my shirt off. I can see my reflection in the kitchen window. I look like a ghost. Pale and thin, so thin that my ribs are almost visible. The blackness under my eyes resembles to the black hole in my heart and soul. I take the knife in my hand again and I touch the blade with one of my fingers. It's so sharp that it start dripping blood from my finger just seconds later.

It's amazing that something so beautiful can come from my body.

The blood forms a nice little pool on the floor and it gives me the inspiration that I've been looking for.

I picture a child swimming in a sea of blood in front of me. It's a little boy with blond hair and blue eyes, he was fishing with his father on their boat but he fell in. He's drowning and his father can't see him. I need to paint. It's burning in my fingers as I badly long to grab hold of one my brushes. I put the knife on the table my need to hurt myself faded away when I was reminded of the only passion I have.

I pull my shirt over my head and I start walking towards the door. Three floors up is the attic where all the tenants have their own little store. In my store there's two easels and a loads of paintings that I've drawn during the years I've been living here. There's a shelf where I keep my paint. I never use any happy colors when I paint, because I don't have any. The only colors I've got are black and white and from those I can get many shades of my favorite color, grey.

I lock the door behind me and I walk slowly up the stairs. The walls are thin I can here everything that my neighbors are talking about when I walk past their doors. The young couple that lives in the flat above mine is fighting with each other, as usual, and a baby is screaming in the next apartment.

As I walk up the stairs I remember when I first came to New York City. It was a rainy night in the beginning of October I had never been here before so I really had no idea where to go so I checked in at the first hostel I saw. I stayed there for about four nights then I couldn't afford staying another night. I wandered around in New York for more then twenty-four hours until I was so tired that my legs couldn't carry me any longer. I stayed that night in the staircase of this apartment building that I'm now living in.

When I woke up an old woman was sitting next to me…

"_Good morning son", she said and smiled at me._

"_Err, good morning ma'am", I replied and stood up._

"_Why are you sleeping out here?" The old lady asked me._

"_I didn't have money enough to stay at the hostel for another night", I told the woman. "But I better go now; I have to find some place to stay"_

"_Don't be silly my son, you and stay with me", she said and she was still smiling brightly at me. "What surprises me the most is that you didn't come up to me when you got here", she continued. "Maybe you didn't remember that this is the house where I live?"_

"_I'm sorry, do I know you?" _

"_Of course you do, don't you recognize your own mother?"_

"_Um… sure…" I mumbled and suddenly I felt the tears burn under my eyelids. This crazy old lady in front of me who thought she was my mother had made me remember my real mother who just a week before this day had been killed by my father right in front of my eyes._

"_Daniel, I've got some spaghetti bolognese ready upstairs", she said and took my hand. "You can stay with me for as long as you like", she said and there was something with her voice that made me calm inside, that made me feel safe._

Her name was Diana Matthews; she was an 85 year old widow who suffered from Alzheimer Disease. She died a week after I had moved in to her apartment and she wanted me, her only 'son' Daniel Matthews, to inherit everything she owned. This was her apartment and everything that was in it, an old bicycle and all the stuff that was in her store in the attic.

Diana was a little weird but during those seven days that I lived with her I learned to like her and when she died I was sad. I lost a friend, my only friend in New York.

I unlock the door to my store at the attic and I step inside the small room. I turn on the lights and walk over to the easel that is place by the small and only window. I grab one of my few brushes that is not worn out or broken and I dip it in a small jar of black paint.

There's an unfinished painting placed on the easel, it's been unfinished for almost a year now because I have never had the inspiration to complete it. Now I have it thought and now nothing can stop me from painting. It still feeling like my fingers are burning as the brush touches the painting and I draw the first line. Next to the mountain I've already drawn my lines form a lake in different shades of grey.

The hours seem to fly away as I stand there completely in my own world watching how my brushstrokes form the picture of a father standing in his boat looking desperately after his son who's drowning in the cold water. At the time that I finish my painting I realize what time it is and I realize that I am five hours late for work but a day like this I don't care.

I'm glad that I found some inspiration to draw again.

I hang up my brand new painting on the wall next to the other paintings I've drawn. There's one that depicts a young boy standing at a rooftop, getting ready to jump. The wind is blowing in his hair and the rain is pouring down. He's got tears falling down his cheeks. Another portrays the same boy but now he's lying on the ground covered in his own black blood.

Next I draw a face. The face of a woman. I draw her eyes, her nose, her mouth and her chin and I add some shadows here and there to make it look more realistic. I give her some freckles at and around her nose. I have no clue why but I make her smile, I give her perfect teeth and cute dimples in her cheeks. Then I give her wavy long hair and a beautiful long neck.

I don't even know why I'm drawing this woman; she's so happy and so beautiful. I've never drawn anything like that before. The more I look at her I notice that she reminds me of some one I have seen before…

Ginny.

Out of all the women on earth I'm drawing her, this isn't happening. She's staring at me and she's smiling at me. I want to rip her happy face in to small pieces. Who does she think she is? She can't just smile at me and think that everything will be alright. How can she believe that I will forget about everything that's ever happened to me by just smiling at me?

I hate her.

I rip the paper away from the easel and I crumple it in my hands. I open the window but I can't throw it away… I can't throw her away. I close the window again and I drop the crumpled paper on the floor.

She's once again managed to destroy something for me. First it was the only light of my life, the River Café; I can't ever go there again without being reminded of my past. And now she's destroyed my one true passion, now I will never be able to paint again without being reminded of her and my past.

I hate her so much that it hurts inside of me.

Something starts boiling inside of me. Hate. Anger. Rage.

I clench my fists and I have to bite my tongue so that I won't scream. I bite hard and soon I taste the familiar taste of blood in my mouth. I spit out some at the floor. The rage is growing inside of me, it grows huge and very soon I am shaking out of anger. I scream out loud in a desperate way to make myself less angry, but it causes me to shake even more. I kick down the easel by the window; I kick it down to the floor and stamp on it until it breaks.

I move on to the next easel that's standing close to the door. I demolish it completely.

I sweep of all the small jars of paint down from the shelf they all break as they hit the floor. Then I move on to all my drawings on the walls, I rip them down, I rip them apart and I scream to unleash all the rage inside of me. I kick, I scream, I break until there's nothing left to break anymore.

I fall down to my knees in the middle of the room; I grab a piece of the shattered glass from one of my many broken paint jars. The anger is still boiling inside of me as I look around in the small room that resembles a refuse dump. All my drawings ripped in pieces, my easels are broken and all the paint is forms a big pool on the floor. I sit in the middle of it.

Everything is falling apart. My life. My one true passion. My soul. Everything.

I pull up the sleeve of my shirt and I cut myself deep in the arm. It hurts like hell but at the same time it feels so damn good. The blood seeps out from my wound and the anger inside of me slowly turns into pain.

Pure and unbearable pain.

I feel the tears burn under my eyelids as the blood drips down from my arm and gets mixed up with the paint on the floor. Beautiful. It's so beautiful. I still enjoy bleeding, at least the Weasley girl hasn't changed that and I will never let her change that.

_I'm surrounded by nothing but the hard walls I wasted so much time on building up. They were supposed to keep all the pain and sorrow away from me, but mostly I built them because I didn't want people to look at me and think 'he's weak'… _

_Oh how I hate that word. _

_Weak. _

_I refuse to be weak, I refuse to feel weak or act weak. Weakness doesn't exist in me._

I can't believe that I've let a woman become my weakness. If I'm not careful this woman will be my downfall.

"I'm just going to get my answers on Friday then I never, ever have to see her again", I tell myself.


	3. Complicated

**Chapter three - Complicated.  
**

_How can you see into my eyes like open doors?_

_Leading you down into my core. Where I've become so numb._

It's Friday morning, I haven't slept at all tonight. I tried and I tried but I just couldn't fall asleep. Must have been because I know that I'm meeting Ginny today before I'm off to work. There's a strange feeling in my stomach today, I think it's because I'm nervous or even scared of what Ginny will answer to all my questions… Or maybe I'm scared because she might bring me down completely with painful memories from my past. I have mixed emotions about this meeting with the Weasley girl. I don't want to talk to her ever again; I want to forget her face. Erase that I've ever met her from my memory. But still, I want those answers so badly.

I try to relax; it's more than two hours left until I'm going to meet her. The couple in the flat above mine is fighting as usual, he is shouting at her, nasty and evil things, she's crying. I can hear it clearly. They start throwing things, everything is just as usual. I like listening to them fighting it keeps my mind of everything else that bothers me. I feel my eyelids getting heavier, I struggle to keep them open but I can't fight it much longer. I drift into sleep.

_I'm running. He is haunting me again; he calls my name over and over again. I can tell he is very angry. I leave the road and I run into the forest instead. Bare branches hit my face and body, it hurts, but I keep running. He's getting closer; I can almost feel him breathe in my neck. _

_I run faster and faster. My legs are taking me to an unknown destination._

_I see a dim light somewhere not so far away, as I get closer I see that it's a man, a priest, carrying a torch. Behind him there's line of persons that I know from Hogwarts. There's Pansy beside Blaise Zabini, and behind them I can see Crabbe and Goyle. Millicent Bullstrode and other familiar faces are in that line. They all look pale. Pansy is crying. What are they doing? Why are they following a priest?_

_I forget that he is after me as I hide in the bushes to watch what they're doing. I see them walking towards a big stone… It's a gravestone. I sneak in the bushes so that I get closer to where they're now standing. I'm so close that I can read what it says on the gravestone._

_Draco Lucius Malfoy_

_June 04, 1980 - _

_It's my funeral, but why? I'm not dead, then I realize that there's no date of death on the stone. Maybe they just think I'm dead because I've been gone for so long? I want to step out of the bushes I want to show that I'm alive. That they don't have to mourn._

_I rise and I feel someone's hands closing around my neck._

"_Did you notice that there's no date of death on the stone?" A familiar voice whispers in my ear._

_I can't answer, he is suffocating me. Desperately I'm grasping for air but the more I fight to get air the harder he presses his hands around my neck. I can't breath._

"_It's because I haven't killed you yet", Voldemort exclaims and laughs out loud. I'm surprised that Pansy or someone else doesn't hear him. He's laughing so loud, it echoes in my mind and he is still holding a firm grip around my neck with his cold, pale hands. It hurts so much, like if his hands are made of steel._

_Slowly I feel the little spark of life left inside of my die. My feet, legs, hands and arms going numb… and suddenly I don't feel at all. My heart is still beating, slowly and unsteady and I'm awake. I can see everything around my so clearly but I feel dead. It's obvious that he drags this on to see me suffer. He enjoys it, I can tell he does and I can't even see his face._

"_I've always wondered what it would be like to kill someone the 'muggle way'", he says. "It feels better then I thought to use my own hands to slowly squeeze the life out of someone"_

_I see a light in front of my eyes, it shines so bright. I'm running again, through a long tunnel but suddenly I hear someone call my name. I stop and turn around. A woman is standing at the dark side of the tunnel, she's calling my name and she's claiming that she can help me._

_I look at the light, it's so tempting, it makes me calm to just look at the light. I can only imagine what it must be like to run through it. Then I look at the woman again, there's something about her voice, it makes me shiver. She reaches out her hand, "Come to me Draco, I'll stay with you forever", she whispers._

_Light. Woman. Light. Woman._

_I can't make up my mind. Pain starts to burn inside of me, it's that kind of unbearable pain that makes me want to break things. Now the light is calling my name and then the woman calls for me again. I can almost feel my body split in two._

"_STOP IT!" I scream out loud. "STOP IT! I don't want to choose!"_

"_Draco, I'll never leave your side", the woman calls._

"_Draco, come and you'll never have to feel pain again"_

"_Please, I don't… I can't choose", I whisper very quietly before I fall down to my knees. I burry my head in my hands and I can't stop the tears from running down my cheeks. The woman grabs my arms and pulls me up to my feet._

"_Come with me", she says. I can't see her face, I want to see her face. There's something familiar about the way she touches me hand. The words, "Never leave you", echoes in my mind, she makes me feel safe and loved by just holding my hand. I'm just about to follow the woman back to where I came from when a wave of dazzling light sweeps me away from her._

"_No!" I scream as the way sweeps me further and further away from her. "Help me! Somebody, help me!" I shout but the light is taking me away from her._

"_Die", Voldemort mutters angrily as he squeezes the last piece of life out of my body._

I wake up and sit up straight in the bed. I'm sweaty and cold at the same time. My neck is sore like if someone really had tried to strangle me. I look at the watch… I'm late for my meeting with Ginny. Quickly I get up from the bed and I try not to think about the dream I just had. I put on the most clean shirt I can find in the room and a pair of shoes that's standing beside my bed. On my way out I grab a jacket.

As I lock the door behind me I hear a female voice behind me, "I heard you scream for help, are you alright?"

I turn around quickly; it's the woman from the flat above. She's got a black eye. Her husband must have beaten her up, again. "I'm fine", I reply before I turn my back against her and hurry down the stairs.

I'm hurrying down the streets of New York towards the River Café and as I'm running I can't help but being reminded of my dream. It wasn't like any other dream I've had before. Normally when Voldemort kills me in my dreams I just die and then I wake up. But this time I had a choice between to live or to die. It was either fall for the temptation of the light or fight my way back to life, back to the woman who wanted to help me.

I suppose I wasn't strong enough, so the wave of light took me and brought me to death. That light, I can't describe it, it was so strong, so powerful… I don't think I could've won over it no matter how hard I would have fought.

When I finally arrive to the café I look around to see that a woman with fiery red hair is sitting by the table which used to be my favourite table. Why is she doing this to me? I can't possibly sit by that table again it reminds me of my first meeting with her hear in New York, it reminds me of that day when I no longer could feel pleasure from pain.

I walk over to her; she's reading a book again.

"Why are you sitting here?" I ask her when I'm standing right in front of the table.

"Oh god, you scared me", she says and closes her book.

"I said; why are you sitting here?" I ask again. Nothing she does is right, everything she does she does to hurt me. She does it on purpose to break me. "I'm not going to sit here", I tell her.

"Sorry, but last week when we met here you said this was your favourite table and that you couldn't possibly sit anywhere else", she says and looks confused.

I don't say anything I just walk over and sit down by a table at the other side of the room. She looks at me like I'm the most stupid person she's ever met before she packs up her things and walks over to me.

"You are weird, do you know that?" She says.

"And you're wasting my time with your foolish games"

"What are you talking about? Foolish games? Draco I don't-"

I cut her off short, "It's Daniel… Daniel Matthews, nothing else", I tell her because I can't let her use my old name like that. Every time she says it's like she stabs a knife in my heart, it stings and it burns. The anger starts to boil inside me when I hear that name and it makes me want to scream that Draco Malfoy is dead.

He was a coward because he ran away that night five years ago, he was weak because he did not stay to fight for his family. He ran and he cried. Draco Malfoy was weak and that's why he no longer exists.

"Alright, Daniel…" She says and rolls her eyes. "Can we talk about why you so badly wanted to meet me here today? You're twenty minutes late by the way!"

Why did she have to point that out? I look out through the window next to me, I stare at the grey sky, it'll probably start raining any second now. _Rain is perfect, _I think to myself. I can walk home and cool down the angry emotions inside of me.

I can feel Ginny's eyes on me, I wish she could just stop looking at me. I wish she could just go away and leave me alone. I close my eyes and I pray that when I open them again she'll be gone… but she isn't. She is still sitting there, watching me with her innocent blue eyes.

"Are you alright?" She asks quietly. Her smooth voice makes me wake up from the trance I didn't even realize I was in. I turn my face towards her again and our eyes meet, a warm feeling goes through my entire body but it disappears again as I look away. She puts her hand on mine. Her touch is light like a feather and it has a strange effect on me. At the same time I want to tell her to never touch me again I don't want her to ever let go of my hand. "Do you want to talk about it?" She asks.

"Talk about what?" I ask before I pull my hand away to place it on my lap instead.

"What ever is bothering you…?"

"You're bothering me", I tell her and it's true, she is bothering me. I wish I could explain it but I really can't. She's so nice to me even though I'm not very nice to her, I can't understand why? I insult her when I really want to say thanks for meeting me here today. It's complicated. I am complicated. I'm like a book in a language that no one can understand, not even I sometimes and only a few people bothers to even try to read. I can tell that Ginny is trying to read me, I can tell by the look in her eyes when she's looking at me.

"I have some things I need to ask you about", I tell her quickly before she says anything else.

"Alright, you can always ask"

"I need answers, you have to give me my answers", I say angrily.

"Only if you will answer a couple of my questions", she says with a superior smirk on her face. "My first question is, why-"

"I'll go first", I exclaim, she annoys me so badly.

"Alright, but I won't answer anything that's too personal", she says and gives me a wink.

I roll my eyes, "What makes you think I'd want to know something about you?" I snap at her.

"I have school today, I start in 30 minutes and if there are some things you so badly want to know about ask me now and don't waste your time by insulting me!" She exclaims and glares at me with anger.

I remain silent, once again the anger starts to boil inside of me, she has no right to glare at me like that!

"Fine, then I'll just go", she says and gets up from her chair. She puts her jacket on before she grabs her bag that's on the floor beside her chair. Without looking at me she walks out from the café.

No one, I mean NO ONE, walks out on me. I decide to follow her and I rise so quickly that my chair falls to the floor. I notice that all the other guests are staring at me. "What the hell are you looking at?" I shout at them before I hurry outside.

It's raining now.

I see Ginny walking quickly down the street, I start running so that I can catch up with her and when I do I grab her arm to stop her.

"Why the hell did you walk out on me like that?" I yell at her.

I honestly have no idea why I'm yelling and why I'm holding her arm so hard.

"Let go of me!" She shouts and tries to break free from my grip. She hits me in the chest with her free arm, "What's your problem? Did you hear what I said? I said let go of me!"

She hits me one more time before I let go of her and I back away, shocked by my own behavior. The rain is pouring down like never before from the sky and I'm thankful because now she can't see the tear that is running down my cheek. I back away even further from her and I look down at the hand that recently held a steady grip around her arm, I want to see it bleed. I want to punish it because I never meant to hurt her, all I wanted was answers to the questions I just couldn't ask.

When I look up I see to my big surprise that she is still standing there, watching me.

I look down at my feet, ashamed of how I've treated her. She showed up at the meeting I set up even though all I've called her in the past, even though how I treated her and her family when we went to Hogwarts. She wanted to know how I was feeling and what was bothering me, she cared even though I insulted her. Another tear escapes from my eye as I turn and begin to walk away.

"Dra- I mean Daniel!" I hear her voice call from behind my back. "Daniel, wait!"

_Daniel… I wonder why it sounds so wrong when she's the one who's speaking…_

I stop in the middle of the sidewalk, soon I feel her hand on my shoulder and I turn around to face her. Her red hair looks darker when no that it's wet and her mascara is running down her cheeks. I can't help it but I reach out both of my hands to dry it away. Her cheeks are so soft.

"I need to get myself a waterproof one", she says and while watching my black finger tips.

I don't say a word. I don't want to say anything because I'm afraid that I will hurt her and I don't want that. I wonder what she would say if she found out about all the things I've been blaming her for lately. I have accused her for being the reason that I'm falling apart when I am the only one who should be blamed. When I look into her eyes I feel calm inside and I know that she doesn't want to hurt me.

For a week I've been walking around angry at someone who is really completely innocent. I built up a wall of hate towards her… why? Maybe it's because she's from my past that I'm trying hard not to think about? Or maybe it's because I needed someone but myself to hate for a change?

"I'm sorry if I just walked out on you like that, if you still want to talk we can go back", she says.

"No", I reply shortly. "You have to go and you have to forget that you've ever met me"

"What? I can't do that?" She tells me and looks heartbroken, like she wants to help me but she doesn't know what to say. "If you ever need to talk to me I can give you my phone number"

"No"

"My address?" She says. "So you can use floo powder to get to me?" She adds quickly.

"I don't use magic anymore", I tell her. "And I think it's best if we never meet again, please, don't tell anyone that you've met me. Just try to forget me!"

"But why…? They've been looking for you forever, they would be so happy-"

"Who?" I ask her. "Who've been looking for me?"

"Your friends… Pansy, Blaise, they've been in every paper I know of and they even appeared in muggle television to find you", she becomes silent for a while and looks down at her feet. "I think they've given up now though", she adds quietly and looks up at me again. "They'd be happy to know you're alive"

"Have you told anyone that you've met me?"

"No"

"Great, please don't tell anyone", I ask her, it's not like me to be begging like this but I can't go back to England now. Not ever. "Hope I didn't hurt you before, if I did… I'm sorry"

"It's ok, I'm fine… But I'm worried about you-"

She's worried about me? Why? She doesn't even know me and she is worried about me. This has gone way too far; I never should've arranged this meeting. I never should've started to talk to her in the first place; I should've calmly walked over to sit by another table alone.

"Don't waste your time being worried about me, forget about me like I'm going to forget about you", I tell her. "I don't ever want to see you again", I say and look into her sad eyes one last time before I turn and walk away from her. When I'm looking back over my shoulder I see her turn and walk away in the direction she was headed to before I stopped her.

The unbearable pain I've felt inside the past week is nothing compared to what I feel inside now. I feel empty and it's the worst feeling I know.

When I arrive to my apartment I don't bother to take of my soaking wet clothes off. I collapse on my knees on the floor beside my bed and I cry. The tears are streaming down my cheeks and I can't seem to make them stop. She's made me realize who I am... I'm not Daniel Matthews, he was just a character I made up to leave my past behind.

I am no one but the weak and cowardly Draco Malfoy, who long to die but is too afraid to kill himself.


End file.
